Student commentary: History of the Future Avant-Garde panel a “choose your own apocalypse game”
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| Sheila Jasanoff, Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Kennedy School, responds during the panel, On the Avant-Garde, at the History of the Future colloquium. Professor Michael Hays, right, moderated the panel. Photo: Laurence Kelly. | Sanford Kwinter, Visiting Associate Professor in Architecture and co-director of the MDesS program, makes a point during the History of the Future colloquium. Photo: Laurence Kelly. |
Justin Fowler, MArch I candidate, reports below on the Avant-Garde panel, moderated by Professor Michael Hays, at the History of the Future colloquium on May 12. Titled “Late for the Future: Notes on the Avant-Garde,” Fowler notes that the panel was, among other things, a kind of “choose-your-own-apocalypse game.” Organized by Professors Timothy Hyde and Hashim Sarkis, the two-day colloquium examined how designers and planners have historically used their projective capacities to imagine better futures. Whether confronting an increasing pressure to respond positively to global disasters such as global warming, underdevelopment, and economic recession, or capitalizing on global achievements such as technological advancement, social freedoms, and bio-political knowledge, architects and planners have been compelled to assume a more speculative posture and to lead in imagining better futures. In addition to the panel, On the Avant-Garde, the colloquium included opening remarks by Professors Sarkis and Hyde, a keynote address by writer and media artist Svetlana Boym, and panel discucsions on utopia, the city, technology, ecology, and development, with colloquium conclusions moderated by architect Gwendolyn Wright.
Read Justin Fowler's report >>